The ShadowMusic Web Community

I am not an engineer and certainly no electronics expert but I feel not much has developed in the past 50 years in certain areas. Why when changing pick ups do we have to go through a lengthy process removing scratchplates etc.. What about a simple pin system whereby you remove the pick up and plug in another (look at the solder saved on this site alone). I am sure Dan Armstrong had a similar system back in 70s.Or a built in chip which could switch from different types of pick ups without changing them. Built in stereo / splitter so can send to various amps. As you can tell I am no expert
Is it the reluctance of players to change that makes manufacturers reluctant.
Lots of amp developments in modelling amps etc but not much on guitars except for manufacturers wanting to sell you yet another set of pick ups.

I know Kinman does a Harness to make installation easier ... I would like to see guitar makers design a better system for sure maybe solderless too.

Interesting question.

If pickups were plug and play, would we keep changing them and, if so, why?

Hi Roger check this out, I bought one last year and find it very convenient apart from having to take the scratchplate off.

Regards.



http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTE5MVgxNjAw/ ... f/$_12.JPG

Iain I do not change pick ups that often however there seem to be a large number of people who do even on this site. An example would be on a Gretsch where you can a Dynasonic sound for one gig and change easily to an overdriven rock sound on another. It would save lugging around different instruments.
My point is there seem to be lots of mods / alternatives / improvements on the market all with old fashioned technology. Soldering is not always the easiest thing to do. I am sure there are many other improvements which people could come up with. Re wiring can be a real pain and time consuming. These sort of things should be easy for developers to address.
It would be good to take your guitar to a shop and plug them in to see if they worked well for you without having the expense and inconvenience of changing everything over to find they don't work for you. It would also be easier for a retailer to offer the same guitar with alternatives etc.